That afternoon Jet was assigned to the back lot. It was a dense patch of gormtrees, spiky and shedding their shaggy limp foliage everywhere. Every day piles of discarded branches and detritus fell in heaps, and it was often Jet’s job to go collect it.

  It was hot, exhausting work and took hours. But if it wasn’t done to Lorin’s satisfaction when he drove a little hovercart through the lot, Jet would have to continue working long after dark.

  He twisted the trash into bundles but kept the best branches for the night’s fire, stowing them on a large wheeled cart. As he worked, he often he heard the captive slaughterdog howling, for it had been moved that morning to the nearby hunting pits to be shot by some lazy human like a fish in a barrel. Every time he heard it he startled, then forced himself to ignore it and keep working. Sometimes he smelled it… and couldn’t stop his scales from bristling.

  After the third or fourth time it managed to startle him he smiled and shook his head, talking to himself quietly. “Come on, Jet. I know the sound is hard-wired into your nervous system. But it’s not getting out of that cage.”

  Still he kept looking warily through breaks in the gormtrees at the big fence not two hundred meters away.

  The first and second tour groups had arrived and they were waiting on the third which would come that evening. The smell of a grand feast filled the air, drifting on the breeze from the kitchens and making Jet’s stomach growl.

  The Resort was in full swing; Oso Beasts were being roasted in the dining courtyards, the musicians and dancers for the night’s entertainment were arriving and setting up, and the Resort bosses were hobnobbing with the rich and powerful. That meant the slaves were left alone. They relaxed, and at the same time got their work done faster because they weren’t being told to do it wrong.

  Jet hurried to finish clearing the brush from the last quarter of the back lot, delighted that tonight they might have a really good fire and maybe even some scraps from the feast after it was cleared away.

  He’d left the area around the hunting pens for last, because of the dog… but as he finished with the final knot of trees that wasn’t near the fence, he took a deep breath and braced himself. Then he walked purposefully toward the trees and brush which was nearest to the enclosure, gripping his shrubbery saw tight.

  It smelled him coming and started to whine, then snarl. It was mad and it wanted something to rend. He heard it run toward the walls (the pit was dug down deep enough into the ground that the beast couldn’t jump it) and leap, but it could only hit the very bottom of the big solid fence. Still, it made the whole thing sing and rattle every time it did it.

  Jet tried to ignore the dog… slaughterdogs were infamous. They were the most aggressive predator in the known galaxy, and they were each the size of a small passenger hovertruck. If it got Jet in its mouth it could rip him in half rather easily. It could eat a human in one bite.

  He was so fixated on his work — grabbing up armfulls of tree trash and bundling them as fast as he physically could — and keeping one eye on the slaughterdog enclosure that he didn’t even see the human standing there. He almost ran into the man and jumped back, startled and astonished, to stare at him.

  The human was middle-aged and a touch portly, with long rich brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail down his back. He wore a mustache, and his clothes were utilitarian; the sort of understated ‘work’ look which very rich men preferred when they went on Safari. As if they would actually get in the dirt at some point, which was highly doubtful.

  He stood at the very perimeter of the slaughterdog pen with one boot actually resting on the base of the fence, quite casually, as if utterly unafraid of the monster within. He’d been staring very thoughtfully at the animal until Jet almost ran him down, then he turned his silent curiosity upon the native.

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  Jet was impressed by how calm he was. Getting jumped at by a slaughterdog and almost run over by a Bantan nearly twice his height hadn’t bothered him a bit.

  “Good evening,” said the man reflexively.

  Jet was even more taken aback by being spoken to. He didn’t know what to do. He just stood there and stared, a bit slack-jawed, with a bundle of tree-trash in his fist and dirt all over him, his mind blank in astonishment.

  After that first moment, though, the young Bantan realized the human may not know he was a slave, despite the obvious limiters stuck to his wings and his ankles. Or may not be used to being around slaves. Choosing to be polite due to the tourist’s probable ignorance, Jet nodded and replied in a deep voice, “evening.”

  He turned and took a step back toward the trees, as he expected the interview was now over. After all, guests generally did not speak to the ‘help.’ But to his further amazement, the human spoke again.

  “You work here?”

  Jet turned to him again, looking him over a second time and taking his measure. There was something about the man of caution and strategy, the sense that he listened first and only acted after he’d gathered all of the information. Jet wasn’t sure where he got that impression from; it may have been the look in his eyes.

  Again, a choice; to remind this human of his own lowliness and duck his head and shuffle away? Or… and that little corner of Jet’s soul which still remembered being free at twelve years old… to act like a reasonable fellow sentient being and show common courtesy to a guest?

  Although he knew he might be punished for it later if Lorin heard about the incident, Jet smiled and chose. “I am.”

  “Grounds-keeper?”

  “You could say that.”

  The human nodded and looked again at the beast in the pit, which had realized it couldn’t reach them by jumping and now paced around in the center growling and glaring at them both. “Where did they find the beast.” It both was, and wasn’t, a question.

  “The Tribes hunt them,” Jet explained quietly, still a little afraid of being overheard speaking to a guest, though they were far from the Resort grounds. “There are Tribes which specialize in hunting them. They catch them in traps and sell them to the Resorts for sport.”

  The human laughed but it was bitter and there was no mirth in it. “Sport! What sport is there to conquering a creature trussed up like a turkey?”

  Jet didn’t know what a turkey was but he could guess from the context. He shrugged one shoulder. “For those who have never acted, any action is a novel experience.”

  The man chuckled a little without looking at him. “True enough. And unfortunately most of the visitors I arrived here with are exactly that: men who have never acted. Men born to their place, who have lived like children, fed and groomed.” The disgust in his tone was obvious.

  The human looked up curiously at Jet. “Have you ever left the planet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you ever wanted to?”

  Jet’s smile was impulsive and automatic. He tried to hide it a bit and looked down. “I used to want to, when I was a child, sir.”

  “But not anymore?” The human was about to ask something like ‘what’s to stop you,’ but then finally noticed the limiter disks on his wings closed to his back. Something went out of his eyes… a light, a freedom, and he realized what Jet was.

  Silently Jet saw that recognition. He managed a little, rueful smile and bowed. Then meekly he took his leave, sure that now the human could not want to speak to him anymore.

  But again the human astonished him.

  “Wait.”

  Jet turned back and looked at the man in wonder. How could a human value speaking to a slave? What did he have to gain from it?

  The human walked toward him slowly, looking more carefully at his wings, at his ankles, and at his scarce clothing. A loin-belt, no more, worn and faded, handed out as a uniform. “I’ve heard about Bantan slaves,” he admitted, more curious than uncomfortable. “I supposed you are not supposed to speak to me.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Jet wasn’t sure how to answer that. He looked back over his shoulder, again nervous that he’d be spotted. After a long moment while the man waited, Jet finally replied. “Respect, sir. You showed it first. I returned it.” He nodded. “Good evening, sir.”

  When he walked away this time, the man didn’t follow or speak to him again. But if Jet could have seen it, if he would have glanced back, he’d have seen the human looking at him with the same frowning, thoughtful expression he’d just been contemplating the slaughterdog with moments before.